Re: Cutting Boards?

I agree. Wood choice in a cutting board is a surprisingly difficult thing to navigate. It's made especially difficult when a gourmand desires something unique and exotic. In my opinion, you want a dense, close-pored, relatively stable hardwood. End grain is the best, face or edge grain is fine.

In case anyone is interested, here are some things you definitely want to avoid:1) Any species of softwood. Pine, fir, spruce. They are just too soft and will get scarred up.2) Any silica-laden wood like teak, because they are brutal on knife edges. Ipe, bubinga, paduak are other culprits. The bummer here is these woods are generally really water-resistant. But your knife edges will thank you if you avoid them3) Any open-pored wood like oak or mahogany. Open wood pores let water and bacteria penetrate. 4) Bamboo- I could write a book on this, but these boards are almost exclusively made in China and are chock full 'o Chinese glue. I don't know what's in that glue, but it's generally hard on knife edges. Bamboo is often touted as being eco-friendly, which might make them a good way to go if only it were true.

So what are we left with? My favorites are domestic (U.S.) hardwoods: Hard Maple, Black Walnut, and American Cherry. If someone wants something funky, Purpleheart from South America can be fun to play with. As the name implies, it is... purple.

Of course, I can make a cutting board out of anything. Those are just my preferences for high-end, wood cutting boards. Some people will choose form over function; others will go with a $2 plastic board from Ikea.

Re: Cutting Boards?

Sun Jul 15, 2012 1:38 am

taz575 wrote:I'm really liking those black walnut boards!! I was looking at the custom board and I'm looking for something 14x16, but that's not one of the choices. I'm guessing you can do that size as well??

I'm finishing up 6 different walnut boards in the shop right now. Several of them are close to that size. These are the first boards I've made from that special batch of walnut I just got, and the wood is really stunning. There's also a cool diamond pattern in the end grain blocks in most of the boards. I didn't plan it that way... it just happened.

Re: Cutting Boards?

Sun Jul 15, 2012 2:10 am

Awesome! Looking forward to some pics of those!! My counter space is a bit limited. I can fit a 14x20 board, but it barely fits! I am using a 14x14 now (thin bamboo, needs to get replaced with a nice board!) and just want something thicker and maybe a couple inches longer.

Re: Cutting Boards?

Wed Jul 18, 2012 2:58 pm

Remember that grain orientation is probably more important than wood type. I have two pro-teak boards end-grain boards and think they are quite gentle on my knives. Indeed Teak does contain some level of silica, but as mentioned, makes the wood very water friendly. I use my little 12" X 12" board every day sometimes multiple times a day. Toss it in the sink, wash both sides, set to drip dry. Never put these boards away even moist. I'd be curious to an experiment with several end-grain woods to determine the merit of John's wood concerns.

Re: Cutting Boards?

Sat Jul 21, 2012 2:04 am

I'm so pleased that a bunch of you have ordered boards. I've gotten some really flattering feedback so far and I'm very grateful. I definitely don't take that for granted. As Mark mentioned, I'm really excited that he and I are partnering with an initial offering of 2 different types of cutting boards on CKtG. Stay tuned for more on that. I'll probably create a thread and a narrative of the process as I start making them.

I do want to mention that since Mark was kind enough to want to sell my stuff, that it probably wouldn't be fair to him to continue offering a separate 10% discount to forum members. He's going to sell my boards at a very fair price. So once he gets those boards and lists them, I will discontinue the 10% discount. It should take me a couple weeks to get the boards made and shipped, so I'm not cutting it off immediately.

I currently have about 15 cutting boards in stock that I haven't listed on my website yet. It takes me forever to take decent pictures, edit them, upload them, write descriptions, etc. So I've been procrastinating on that. If anyone is interested, I might make a youtube video of them all and can provide particulars to anyone who wants them. That's a fair trade-off, I think. You get a 10% discount, and I don't have to do all the work to upload stuff to the website.